Little Children, Keep Yourselves from Idols
1 John 5:18–21 NKJV
We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.
We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
When we take 1 John 5:21 by itself, it is a bit jarring. The epistle does not address bowing down before graven images such as we see in the Old Testament. The Jews finally learned the lesson through the Babylonian exile not to bow down to idols and the worship of other gods. The Christians who came out from Judaism consistently affirmed that idols and strange gods were not to be worshiped. Many of the Gentiles had worshiped such before they became Christians and were to forsake them and worship the true God revealed in Jesus Christ. This would have been taught from the very beginning of the local church to which this epistle was written. So why would John in the final verse of this epistle reaffirm this teaching to keep one’s self from idols. It is true that some might have been tempted in this way to go back to the Pagan temples for “social” purposes or to buy the sacrificial meat that was sold there. Others who belonged to guilds who were dedicated to foreign gods might have felt compelled to offer incense to this god (patron). This seems to have been a problem for some of the seven churches John addresses in Revelation. Revelation also seems to indicate that one could not buy or sell in the public markets without offering incense to the gods. When they did so, their hand was stamped to allow them to enter and show that they offered the required piety. (mark of the beast?) But there is another possibility that John addresses in 1 John to which this charge to avoid idolatry might refer.
In our study of 1 John, we noticed that there had been a schism in the church. Some felt themselves to have outgrown the need of the teaching of Jesus and to connect directly to God to become perfect. Some think that these were a cult called the “Gnostics” who emphasized the gaining of secret knowledge open only to the initiated. Gnosticism, “Christian Gnosticism” indeed became a great issue in the Church which the church fathers, such as Irenaeus, had to deal with. But the Greeks had long been the worshipers of knowledge. They had various mystery religions such as the Cult of Dionysius (Bacchus) or the mysteries at Elysium which emphasized knowledge which could only be understood by the initiated. There were different degrees of enlightenment in which what was taught at the higher degrees was different than that taught to the newly initiated.
We learned that in this Church that these “perfect ones” had left to found their own sect. They felt that the others who had stayed were too stupid to understand the “true knowledge.” These had apparently come from the leadership of the church. The ones who had been left behind felt deeply about this rejection. This is why John is so adamant that those who had stayed and to whom this epistle is directly addressed were the true church and possessed the true knowledge. They were in fellowship with the Father and the Son. They had the unction of the Holy Spirit who leads the believer into all truth. The Son cannot be bypassed to address the Father directly. The one who has not the Son does not have the Father also. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, No one comes to the Father except through Him. (John 14:6) Therefore, it would be apostacy to leave the church to join those who had never really been part of the true church anyway. They proved this by their leaving.
We now take a look at the concluding paragraph of the epistle. We are confronted again with the truth that one who has been born of God does not sin. This verse has caused all kinds of distress to the believer if taken at face value. The idea of Christian perfectionism in this life haunted Wesley and his followers and left them in constant fear of losing their salvation. It is distressing that Wesley only found a handful of believers whom he felt had come to perfection in love in this life. and he was not one of them! But we found the answer of how to deal with this conflict earlier in our study of the epistle. John tells us that anyone who says “I have not sin” is a liar. Note that “have” is a present tense verb. It does not say “had” as though this was true in the past but not in the present. Why is this important? On the surface, the person who looks for Christian perfection within one’s self will always be anxious and disappointed. Who could be saved? Even if one had their slate of sin erased when they received Christ would soon accumulate new sins. John must mean something else.
John knew quite well the problem of indwelling sin in the believer. This is why he says that IF anyone sins, they have an advocate with the Father, one whose blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness. There is forgiveness available after coming to Christ. This requires us to live a life with continuing repentance in view. But even this causes much instability in the Christian life in that we feel the need to get saved again and again. There must be more.
Here is the more that makes all the difference. John tells us that we are in fellowship with the Father through the person of Jesus Christ. He is the only man who ever could come into the presence of the Father who is pure light without a speck of darkness. If we tried to come to God in ourselves, we would burn to a cinder. But Jesus can enter into the Holy of Holies on our behalf where he makes intercession and propitiation for our sin. We can come into the presence of the Father precisely because we are in Christ. And we are not just alone in Christ. We are in a Christian body called the Church of which Christ is the head. Because we stand in fellowship with each other in the body of Christ, we are made perfect in Him.
Seeing that this is what John means, let us look at those who had left. They were perfection seekers. they not only disregarded the need for Jesus Christ any more, they also had no use for his body either. This is why they had left. They saw salvation as an individual race. They could come to perfection in their own self-effort. they needed nothing less. Anyone who hinders the progress of such a perfectionist would have to be discarded as a burden. the shock is that by their leaving the body, they now had to face the statement “If any man says he has not sin, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him. The one’s who had decided to do it on their own with others who had the same opinion now either fell under the delusion of self-righteousness or constant fear because they found themselves to be sinners once more.
One can see the implications for us in the church today. We tend to have a “me and Jesus” attitude or even worse a “me and God” one. We have become completely self-centered in our approach to salvation. We fail to discern His body as we ought. We have little patience for those who are struggling. We have discouraged many to leave the Church. Not only have the “perfectionists” left, but others who feel that they are not “good enough” as well. Salvation is not a race in which the one who finishes first gets a prize. The one who finishes second is called the “first loser.” We sometimes get the idea that only 144,000 from all the people who have lived will make it. Of course, these must be male virgin Jews if we take that interpretation which would exclude the vast majority of us from the start.
What the church needs to do is to take on the idea we see in the Special Olympics where those who are less able are assisted to finish the race. The emphasis is not on winning but on finishing. If we look at thing this way, we discover that no one is crowned until the least finishes the race. How much more we would be willing to help the weak along. Jesus came and died for us and our sins so that we might finish this race. We are all less than special Olympians in the salvation race. But he wants us to finish and constantly helps us on the way. But only if we are in Him.
So long as we are in Christ, please note “WE” and not “I”, then we are protected from the evil one, the one who promised Adam and Eve in the Garden that they could become their own gods who could determine what was right or wrong for themselves. It was this lie which benighted the entire human race in the thralldom of sin. This is our only and sufficient protection. Satan will tempt us to leave the sanctuary of the Church one way or another, but we need to remain steadfast in Him within the confines of His Church.
Everything in this world outside the boundaries of the Church lies under the control of the wicked one. So who was controlling those who had left the fellowship? But in the Church, we have the true understanding which has been given us. Now John make a profound statement. Not only does this understanding allows us to know He who is true but also that we are “IN HIM” who is true, that is Jesus Christ.” Since we know and are in “THE TRUTH”, why should we look anywhere else?
All we have just studied now tells us how we should deal with the warning to keep one’s self from idols. The ones who had left had made idols of their own thoughts and actions. They were worshiping themselves and not God. Idols are not just statues and images that point to other and false gods. They can be the constructs and delusions of our own minds. This is not to say as we noted that this warning against idolatry would apply to graven images, I think the greater danger are these mental gods. We worship our ideas. We crow about democracy and other schemes of government. We are tempted to find some other scheme to live by. Philosophies cover the entire spectrum of society. What they have in common is that they leave God out. They might claim to serve some sort of god. They might even say that they believe in God. But if no one comes to the Father but through the Son, just what God are they serving?
Let us encourage one another in the Christian race that we might finish. We can only finish the race if we are “in Him” and we can only be in Him if we are in His body as well.
